• 540.434.0316
  • info@wawlaw.com
    OSHA Law Firm Logo with Wharton, Aldhizer & Weaver watermarkOSHA Law Firm Logo with Wharton, Aldhizer & Weaver watermarkOSHA Law Firm Logo with Wharton, Aldhizer & Weaver watermarkOSHA Law Firm Logo with Wharton, Aldhizer & Weaver watermark
    • Home
    • Blog
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    ✕
    Two construction workers pouring concrete
    Reminder: OSHA’s Multi-Employer Doctrine Let’s It Cite You For Somebody Else’s Employee
    November 15, 2019

    More Intensive OSHA Investigations Are Coming: What OSHA’s New Weighting System Means For Workplace Safety and Health Inspections.

    Published by Lucas I. Pangle on November 8, 2019
    Categories
    • OSHA Updates
    Tags
    Construction Worksite with equipment and concrete columns
    What you should know: OSHA is now using a new Weighting System to gauge enforcement activity that will incentivize Area Offices to conduct more intensive investigations. Before, an Area Office might have been reluctant to undertake intensive, complex inspections because it would not have received enough “credit” within the agency and have been penalized for being ineffective. Now, Area Offices are rewarded for more complex inspections, and employers may well see an uptick in multi-CHSO, multi-day inspections

    Effective October 1, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) implemented the OSHA Weighting System (OWS) for fiscal year (FY) 2020, replacing the enforcement weighting system initiated in FY 2015.  The OSHA Weighting System provides OSHA with a framework to measure its enforcement activity of the agency, as well as the activity levels of the various Area Offices.

    The OWS system is important to employers because it can affect which types of inspections OSHA might initiate and the manner in which OSHA will conduct those inspections. The OWS System directs area office focus to those inspections for which it receives the most Enforcement Units (EU). EUs are OSHA’s version of the “credit” Area Offices receive for different sorts of inspections. OSHA instituted the weighting system, in part, to incentivize area offices to take on certain kinds of inspections:

    “In the past, we have used the number of inspections as the primary metric to measure enforcement activity. While this metric served a useful purpose, it penalized those field managers that took on more complex inspections that required a greater amount of CSHO effort. These include inspections involving ergonomic hazards, chemical exposures, workplace violence, and PSM violations. For example, a process safety management (PSM) inspection of an oil refinery, which might take months, accounted for less weight under this system than a group of concurrent safety inspections at a construction site involving several employers.”

    Memorandum for Regional Administrators, Enforcement Weighting System (EWS), Sep. 30, 2015, available at https://www.osha.gov/dep/enforcement/ews_memo_09302015.html.

    Under the previous enforcement weighting system, OSHA weighted certain inspections based  primarily on the time taken to complete the inspection.  However, the updated OWS approach now accounts for agency priorities and the impact of inspections. OSHA contends that this system incorporates three major work elements performed by the field: enforcement activity, essential enforcement support functions (e.g., severe injury reporting and complaint resolution), and compliance assistance efforts. The new system also adds enforcement initiatives such as the Site-Specific Targeting to the weighting system. 

    This modified OWS system underscores the importance of complex enforcement activity focused on the most hazardous workplaces and operations, including process safety management, combustible dust hazards, and fatality/catastrophe cases. In addition, OWS includes added weight for OSHA’s “focus four” hazards—those areas where many fatalities occur (i.e. falls, struck-by object, electrocutions, and caught-in/between hazards). Those industries (e.g. construction) that readily encounter these hazards should be cognizant that OSHA inspectors will be especially keen to their safety programs. 

    Under the new OWS system, inspections pertaining to criminal cases and “significant” cases receive the most “bonus” EU value, while other intensive inspections such as PSM and fatality/catastrophe inspections are heavily weighted as well. Additionally, inspections related to emphasis programs, such as ergonomics, amputation, and confined space, garner an additional EU credit. The full hierarchy of the new EU weighting system may be found at https://www.osha.gov/memos/2019-09-30/revisions-occupational-safety-and-health-administration-weighting-system.

    Share
    Lucas I. Pangle
    Lucas I. Pangle

    Related posts

    recording COVID 19 OSHA 300 log
    April 12, 2020

    UPDATE – Recording COVID-19 Infections on OSHA 300 Logs


    Read more
    pallet racks
    March 14, 2020

    Forklifts & Selective Racking Systems. How Sturdy Does Your Racking System Need To Be?


    Read more
    Specialty Contractors
    February 8, 2020

    Reliance on Specialty and Expert Contractors for OSHA Compliance Must Be Reasonable.


    Read more

    Comments are closed.

    Wharton Aldhizer & Weaver Logo

    Wharton Aldhizer & Weaver

    100 S. Mason Street Harrisonburg, VA 22801

    Tel: 540.434.0316 Fax: 540.434.5502

    Attorney Advertising.

    This website is designed for general information only. The information presented at this site should not be construed to be formal legal advice nor the formation of a lawyer/client relationship.

    Recent Posts

    • UPDATE – Recording COVID-19 Infections on OSHA 300 Logs April 12, 2020
    • Forklifts & Selective Racking Systems. How Sturdy Does Your Racking System Need To Be? March 14, 2020
    • Reliance on Specialty and Expert Contractors for OSHA Compliance Must Be Reasonable. February 8, 2020
    • The Commission Regains Its Quorum. January 22, 2020
    • Ninth Circuit Applies Kisor v. Wilkie, Clarifies Employer’s Obligation to Monitor Respiratory Hazards. January 12, 2020
    © 2019 Wharton Aldhizer & Weaver, PLC | Site configured by J. Brooke Chao Designs | Theme by MuffinGroup
        Manage Cookie Consent
        We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
        Functional Always active
        The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
        Preferences
        The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
        Statistics
        The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
        Marketing
        The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
        Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
        View preferences
        {title} {title} {title}